We had hardly half a dozen clear days during the whole month of July, but under the guidance of the almost omniscient Ghond, and with my friend Radja, we travelled very far in a short time. We visited and stayed with all classes of the mountain folk, who looked much like Chinese. Their manners were elegant and their hospitality generous. Of course we took the pigeons with us, sometimes in a cage but most of the time under our tunics. Though we were frequently soaked with rain, Gay-Neck and his mother were religiously guarded from the weather. Towards the end of July we made a journey beyond every Lamasery (monastery) and baron's castle of Sikkim that we three human beings and the two pigeons had seen and known. We passed Singalele, where there was a nice little Lamasery, on toward Phalut and the Unknown. At last we reached the homeland of the eagles. Around us were bare granite cliffs surrounded by fir trees and stunted pines, before us to the north lay the Kanchinjinga and the Everest ranges. Here on the edge of an abyss we released our two birds. In that exhilarating air they flew like children running from school at the end of the day. Gay-Neck's mother flew far upwards in order to show her son the sublime heights. After the two birds had flown away, we three men talked of what they might be seeing as they sped above the altitudes. Before them, no doubt, rose the twin peaks of the Kanchinjinga group slightly lower than Mount Everest but just as impeccable and austere as that immaculate peak untrodden still by the feet of men. That fact roused profound emotions in us. We saw the mountain in the distance just for a few minutes like a mirror before the Face of God and I said to myself, "O thou summit of sanctity, thou inviolate and eternal, may no man tarnish thee, nor may any mortal stain thy purity even by his slightest touch. May thou remain forever unvanquished, oh Thou backbone of the Universe, and measurement of Immortality." But I have brought you so high not to tell you about mountains, but of an adventure that befell us there. Now that Gay-Neck and his mother had flown, we gave up watching them and went in quest of an eagle's nest which was on a neighbouring cliff. The Himalayan eagle is brown with a soft golden glow, and though very beautiful to look at--it is in perfect proportion of beauty with strength--yet it is a fierce beast of prey. But at first on this particular afternoon we encountered nothing savage. On the contrary, we found two fluffy white eaglets in an eyrie. They looked as engaging as new-born babes. The southern wind was blowing right in their eyes but they did not mind it. It is in the nature of the Himalayan eagle to build his nest facing the direction of the wind. Why? No one knows. Apparently the bird likes to face that which he floats up on.